Louise Dudley: Shooting from the hip. Yeah, right.

She makes being in the hot seat look so easy. Always poised, always well-spoken, Louise Dudley has calmly handled the press during UVA's worst calamities over the past 11 years.

Now that she's retiring on December 31, the words "UVA spokesperson" won't, for the first time in years, automatically precede or follow her name.

Why retire now? "When you start getting letters from Social Security, it raises the question," she explains.

While she loves her job, Dudley says she wants to do more of the things that have been squeezed by her demanding, high-profile position. Her former doctor wrote a book called The Third Third, which says that age 60 isn't the end of the line, but the beginning of the third third of life. Dudley, who took up running at 60, takes that message to heart.

Since she first came to work at the university in 1964, Dudley has observed a huge change in the nature of press relations.

"There was no Virginia Freedom of Information Act then," she says. "Board of Visitors' meetings were closed, and documents were not considered public. That was all before Watergate."

As a writer in the news department, she'd type up press releases using carbon copies. "We'd mark it a.m. or p.m. because there were still afternoon papers. And they'd publish it as written. It was a different world."

Dudley, who is a regular on TV, offers this tip for any newcomer finding a camera in his or her face: "The TV crew is not interested in having people look bad. If you mess up, say, 'Stop, I used the wrong word. Let's start over.'" Who knew?

When a pavilion balcony collapsed at graduation ceremonies in 1997, Dudley was there along with 25,000 other people and the press. She briefed reporters as information became known and held press conferences, remaining unflappable throughout.

The most difficult event she's dealt with was the baby switch at the UVA Medical Center. "That was such a hard situation," she says. "If we make a mistake, we try to fix it. There was no good solution to that one."

Her favorite UVA scandal? "The time when the fraternities had just started dry rush. One got the creative idea to have strippers and a Washington Post reporter was there."

Age: 63 next month.

What brought you here? Both times– 1964 and 1989– my husband's study and work at the law school.

What's worst about living here? Superlatives are too hard. That said, brick sidewalks.